This morning we were all about the river! I love it when children make connections. When one of our educators mentioned aquatic ecosystems, one of our kindergarteners piped up, “Oh, like our aquatic center, where we swim. It’s water!”

Activities this morning included testing water quality using technology (water temperature, PH of water, amount of dissolved oxygen in water), learning about water sheds, hunting for macro invertebrates (macro – opposite of micro, meaning big enough to be seen without a microscope, and invertebrates – without a backbone) and using either an app that asks questions (How many legs? How many tails? Does it have a shell? etc.) or a classification chart to identify the macro-invertebrates we caught in the creek, and learning about aquatic habitats for animals. We searched for evidence of beaver activity. The kindergarteners also drew pictures of animals that lived near this creek in their habitats. The habitat needs to supply food, water and shelter. We drew beavers, quail, fish, swallows, deer . . . and more. The KG kids also got to feel a beautiful beaver pelt!

A plus of being close to the river was we had another beautiful location for morning snack and lunch, and a perfect day to enjoy our picnic! We love our favorite, enormous willow tree!

After lunch and recess, each group worked on an inquiry project, thinking about what they wanted to learn more about and choosing a question they could answer through nature. The older students followed the scientific method – asking a question, coming up with a hypothesis, thinking about how they could answer the question, what data they needed to collect, and how they would present their project. For the kindergarteners we kept it simple. What did we want to learn more about? What did we want to find out? How could we find out the answer to our question?

Now, I can’t tell you what each of the four groups decided to study because that would spoil the surprise for the presentations of our research tomorrow! But I will leave you with these photos of the kg kids collecting data! What are they trying to find out, I wonder? Presentation of research is at 11:00 tomorrow at the Sunnyside Picnic Pavilion. Picnic to follow.